The research examines the relationship between social experience and psychological well-being. It looks at the enduring problems people encounter in their daily lives as workers and family members, at the gain and loss of roles as the life-cycle unfolds, and at sudden, unexpected crises that often confront people. Each of these types of experience is examined in relation to symptoms of emotional distress. Data for the study were collected at two points in time. In 1972 a sample of 2300 people, representative of the Chicago Urbanized Area were interviewed and a sub-sample (1200) of this group was reinterviewed in 1976-77. One analysis of these data concerns the conditions underlying the greater tendency toward depression among women than among men; a second inquiry is directed at the circumstances differentially disposing people of different marital status toward depression; a third deals with some of the circumstances leading to stress in marriage; another is concerned with the use of alcohol as a mechanism to manage anxieties arising out of economic problems; and a final analysis aims at identifying patterns of coping employed by people in contending with different kinds of life strains. BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCE: Pearlin, Leonard I. and Clarice Radabaugh: Economic Strains and the Coping Functions of Alcohol. American Journal of Sociology, 82 (Nov.), 1976:652-663.